Bogdana B

The early 20th century saw the Ukrainian region suffer considerable political instability and oppression. Following the long and bitterly fought war of independence (1917 to 1921), the Soviet government introduced a new policy of korenizatsiya (‘putting down roots’) which allowed the Soviet republics much greater freedom. This resulted in a vibrant yet short-lived cultural renaissance, and the emergence of a new generation of artists, writers, and musicians who drew variously on Eastern and Western models while looking to their national heritage.

Boris Lyatoshynsky was a leading member of a new generation of Ukrainian composers that emerged in the 1920s. His expansively conceived Ukrainian Quintet finds him at his most emotionally overt, with a heartfelt Lento e tranquillo second movement. Dedicated to Lyatoshynsky, Valentin Silvestrov's Piano Quintet dates from the start of his Modernist odyssey of the 1960s, while Victoria Poleva's withdrawn and secretive Simurgh-quintet is part of a style that embraces spiritual themes and musical simplicity defined as 'sacred minimalism'.